Thursday, September 27, 2012

The A's $100 Million Payroll

This past Saturday, the New York Times featured a piece by Tyler Kepner regarding the A's quixotic quest for a new stadium. This passage, thinking long term was interesting:

If the A’s knew their destination, (A's part-owner Lew) Wolff said, they could begin to secure their core players and prepare for a payroll that could eventually almost double, to $100 million.
A $100 million payroll would be nice, however if the team can do what it has done this year, then they really would have no need to spend that much. Below is a chart comparing actual salaries versus value in millions assigned by FanGraphs (hitting/pitching). Many of the current A's are making less than the league minimum for the season as their salaries are prorated from when they are called up. The A's also paid a prorated portion of the league minimum for Brandon Inge.

For totals, full league minimum salary was given to each rookie. This is also only a snapshot with respect to the FanGraphs data. Tomorrow the numbers will be adjusted per today's performance and so on through the end of the season. It is also worth noting that, unlike in real life, players can generate a negative value.

What these numbers show, however, is that spending money wisely is paramount. Every player on this list is performing above their market value. The A's key players are playing like a $100 million plus team already.

Player

Actual Salary (in millions unless noted)

Value Per FanGraphs (in millions)

Josh Reddick

$485,000

$17.4

Jarrod Parker

$480,000

$16.7

Coco Crisp

$6.0

$11.4

Tommy Milone

$480,000

$11.1

Yoenis Cespedes

$6.5

$10.5

Bartolo Colon*

$2.0

$10.4

Brandon Moss

less than $480,000

$10.2

Jonny Gomes

$1.0

$8.7

Brandon Inge

less than $480,000

$8.2

Brandon McCarthy

$4.275

$7.9

Seth Smith

$2.415

$7.6

Josh Donaldson

less than $480,000

$7.0

Sean Doolittle

less than $480,000

$7.0

Cliff Pennington

$490,000

$6.2

Travis Blackley

less than $480,000

$5.4

Ryan Cook

$480,000

$5.7

A.J. Griffin

less than $480,000

$5.7

Grant Balfour

$4.0

$4.9

Chris Carter

less than $480,000

$4.5

TOTALS:

less than $26.582

$166.5

* Colon, although suspended for PEDs and thus having a smaller sample size, still had a substantial impact on the season.